Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Dorie Clark

Damon Pistulka  00:04

All right, everyone, welcome once again, it is Friday and it is the manufacturing ecommerce success series. I’m one of your co hosts Damon Pistulka. And this beautiful man over here is Kurt Anderson, my brother from another mother on the east coast where I’m on the west. Take it away, Kurt.

Curt Anderson  00:22

Hey guys, happy Friday man would Damon I don’t know.

Damon Pistulka  00:27

I can’t believe this.

Curt Anderson  00:28

I don’t know what you and I did in a previous life but man I it must have been because it wasn’t this life that deserved yesterday, man. It was not this life that deserve that. So Damon we have the one the only we have Dorie Clark in the house. Dory. Happy Friday. How are you my friend?

Dorie Clark  00:44

Kurt Damon, thank you so much. I’m really glad to be here with you guys.

Curt Anderson  00:47

This is such an absolute honor. So guys, drop us a note. Let us know you’re there. First off, we have Dorie Clark. If you’re not familiar with Dorian not sure where you’ve been hiding for the past whatever it’s been here we got John Buck lino, join us today Dan bigger is here. So guys, let us know that you’re here give Dori a shout out. So guys, if you’re not familiar with Dory, you can connect with her on LinkedIn because he has like 18 million followers and connections but you can certainly follow her and boy you will thank demonized for doing so. So she has all sorts of things we’re going to talk about she has multiple books, reinventing you entrepreneurial you I’m gonna go back in time stand out we’ve got the long game trebles book story, you know, and I’ve I’ve got your book breaker on my phone. I’m an avid definitely that was my daughter. But I’m an avid avid fan of yours. Of course. You are a podcaster. You are a professor you’re on. You have a weekly Newsweek show if I’m not mistaken, is that correct? You are Drew’s you’re at Duke University as a professor Harvard Business Review Fast Company Inc. Forbes? I mean, do you want an underachiever? Daymond? I don’t know about are you? How are you tell us a little bit about what’s going on in your world right now.

Dorie Clark  01:58

I’m rockin and rollin. Thank you so much. Yes, I am. These days, I’m splitting my time between Miami and New York and I’m up in New York for the summer. So just kind of maxing out and enjoying it. I was working a little bit this morning and early this afternoon. I’m very excited because I am returning to something that I have not done for many months. It was my great COVID indulgence, which is taking ping pong lessons so that later today awesome.

Curt Anderson  02:29

The break that out in the show. Can you show it? I’ve been trying to work on my backhand. So maybe we can Yeah,

Dorie Clark  02:33

it’s it’s it’s sort of like you know, you you want to just kind of lightly scuffed it. It’s like it’s like, sort of spinning it. And then you know, the reverse the backhand. It’s kind of like your three year flinging of Frisbee.

Curt Anderson  02:45

Yeah. Nice. All right. Well, hey, what do you have to work on that maybe at the end of the program today, but door you and I have a nice little connection might you know when to one person that I love dearly. My mother, she was at Smith College, I believe you were and we found out that we met you miss mom by a year she went into non traditional age. Smith is a amazing, wonderful Women’s College, great elite university, college rather, and you were there and you guys just miss each other. But Smith College, Harvard master’s degree in theology, I believe, let’s take God man, such a monster, massive success and demand you mentioned like top business thinker, golden, you know, Marshall Goldsmith, number one coach and all these other accolades that we’re going to get into. But Dory, as we go back in time, you’d like to share that you grew up in North Carolina as a little girl in North Carolina. I love to ask you. You are such an amazing rock star. Who was your hero growing up? Who led to this monster success? Who was your hero growing up?

Dorie Clark  03:44

That is easy, Kurt. The answer is James Bond. No.

Curt Anderson  03:47

Perfect answer. You know, I thought that was gonna be your

Dorie Clark  03:51

Absolutely. I mean, you know who, who wouldn’t want to be a super sexy hyper competent spy? That’s really what I’ve spent most of my life aspiring to be

Curt Anderson  04:02

James Bond that’s like them, and we haven’t had that answer before. Okay, so that James Bond was your inspiration for all these books, all these athletes, everything that you’ve accomplished. Now, which James Bond Can I ask? What did you have one of them?

Dorie Clark  04:15

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I grew up with Roger Moore, of course. And so that was that was where I sort of fixated I you know, I fully admit with the wisdom of adulthood that there are some you know, challenges around Roger Moore may not have been the best bond if you did not grow up with James Bond. But I do have a real soft spot for him in my heart

Curt Anderson  04:41

while he was certainly a dynamo, that’s for sure I you know, I had a soft spot for Sean Connery myself being another bond. And so I That’s a fantastic answer. So we want to talk today about the long game so again, guys, if you’re just joining us here today, you want to check out Dorries amazing, incredible books. Let’s talk about the long game so we are climbing base are the folks that were targeting manufacturers story. So, you know, we have individuals looking at things from a long game perspective and groups organizations you speak I know you speak to different trade associations, different organizations based around manufacturing. Let’s get into like, what are some tips, strategies and advice that you have? For me for manufacturers playing the long game? Yeah, absolutely,

Dorie Clark  05:23

Kurt. So, you know, ultimately, the challenge that all of us face and it was more more acute than normal during COVID, is we we understand evolutionarily, I mean, every every human likes things rapidly, right? We’re wired that way, if we have a choice between something now and something in the future will, you know, now sounds pretty good. But it is also true, that there are a lot of things that no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we want them, they just do take time, you can’t snap your fingers and make them happen. And if you want them to happen at all, you have to be taking methodical steps now to ensure that they’re ready in the future. And I think, you know, manufacturers, by and large, actually understand this much better than most other people. I mean, no manufacturing facility, for instance, no manufacturing capacity is built overnight, you have to be thoughtful about planning that out and taking the steps now, so that your understanding, you know, well what what do we need to be able to do a year from now? What do we need to be able to do five years from now and do what’s necessary, but it’s a constant struggle that we have to balance those things. And I think something we often forget and you know, with, with the long game, I really strove to try to remind individual executives and individual professionals of it is the same things that we’re doing for our business, you know, the forecasting the working backwards, the thinking, you know, okay, what do I need to do today so that my business can be successful in 2030, or whatever it is. We need to be doing that for our own individual careers as well and apply those same lenses to our own professional lives. Right, man,

Curt Anderson  07:04

I absolutely love that. We’ve got some people. Yeah, yeah, it’s here today. We’ve got Barbara John, we got Jan Paul. It’s here today Isha. So So now Alicia, she was actually on our she was a guest. Not too long ago, we had Maria Contreras, a dear friend of yours. She was a guest of ours not too long ago, Carolyn Kelly, Barry. And I just wanted to tie this together. So Dory, let me let me slide gears for a second. We’ll come back to long game. You run mastermind groups, you are a coach, I’ve actually had the honor privilege going through a coaching session for you. I can say firsthand. Game Changer. You are tremendous blessing, inspiration and influence on me. I’ll share that firsthand. OMG OMG gal we’ve got Dory in the house here. Man. This is absolutely awesome. So egging me port Michael Clark. Thank you, Gail. So you know, as we talked about you, you do mastermind groups, you do coaching you have courses, I’m part of you have a massive community called the recognized, recognized expert community that you’ve built up, at least is in that group. And the other names I just mentioned, let’s sign in as there’s a shout out to Rex was right there. Let’s get into this is we’re talking long game, you’ve done a tremendous job when you took a pivot with your career and went into coaching. And you’ve built this dynamic community. Okay, for individuals out here with a say, and organizations manufacturers, what are some tips and advice that you have on how do you build such a vibrant community that you’ve done? Truly on single handedly?

Dorie Clark  08:33

Oh, well, well, thank you, I appreciate it. It is it is a great thing to be thinking about. Because you know, whether you know, whatever field you’re in, you know, whether it’s speaking and coaching and things like that, or manufacturing, if you can actually build a community so that it’s not just disparate individuals who think of themselves as your customers, but a community of people that think of themselves as being part of what you’re doing and aligned with it becomes incredibly powerful. And so, you know, as of as I’ve discovered this, as you mentioned, Kurt, starting in 2016, I began to recognize expert community. So this has been running running after six years. So I’ve had time to kind of build, build things up and experiment and learn from the process. But ultimately, the way that I like to think about it, is that, you know, in some ways, you you as an individual, or you as a company are the starting point, you’re the kind of focal point that gets people to connect. But what gets people to stay is the relationships that they build with each other. And so the more you can facilitate community building, so that you’re not even involved in, you know, so that you can essentially be a matchmaker and help people make professional connections, make friendships, you know, find commonalities, the better off it is, because those friendships in those relationships make it valuable. It is just frankly, not that interesting for people over time to be part of a community where it’s just like, oh, you know, like you were talking about how awesome this one person is like, okay, that’s nice. But you want to be part of a community where you keep meeting great people who are aligned with you and share values, it is super hard in contemporary society, for people to make friends, as adults, this is a very hard thing once you leave college basically. And so if you can provide an opportunity for people to make personal connections and professional connections, even better, if they can be both, you are providing a service that people are going to want to flock to, because it is so fulfilling on a lot of on a lot of levels that are very hard for people to fulfill organically,

Curt Anderson  10:43

right? I absolutely love that. And you have a great quote and I’m gonna say I think this was an entrepreneurial you. You talked about begin with generosity. And you really hammer about like building that community with generosity. And you talk about Marshall Goldsmith now is was Marshall Goldsmith was that a mentor of yours, like, share your relationship with Marshall Goldsmith, because I believe you were ranked as the number one coach of Marshall Goldsmith coaches that which is an extremely impressive honor and you shared, like your relationship and talk about that generosity with that.

Dorie Clark  11:12

Well, thank you, Kurt. Thanks, Damon. So I did win an award, it was to be clear, it was the number one Communication Coach education. There are lots of lots of great coaches involved in his community. But that was the particular award that I won. So Marshall, for folks who may not be familiar with him, Marshall is a very well known executive coach, one of Marshall is in his early 70s. Now, and he was really kind of one of one of the, you know, sort of earliest people to really attain broad based awareness and notoriety as an executive coach, and he has become a best selling author, he has, you know, a number of popular books, like What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, and Mojo and triggers, which were all New York Times bestsellers, and martial in recent years, starting, you know, around the same time, I created the recognized expert community, I would guess it was like 2016 2017, Marshall created a community that he calls 100 coaches, and this is something that I actually wrote about and profiles a bit in the long game, because I think it is such an interesting testament to the, you know, the, the work that he does, and sort of these values. But, you know, he decided, as he was kind of coming into, you know, like a legacy phase, you could say, of his career that, you know, this is not a guy who needs to earn more money at this point, like, that’s, you know, I mean, money, money is nice, but at a certain point, once you’ve earned enough, it’s like, you know, okay, whatever, that’s not thrilling. You want to keep coming up with things that are interesting and meaningful to you. And what was meaningful to Marshall is he wanted to give back. And so he decided that he would create a community originally it was going to be 15 people, then he said, Well, okay, let’s expand to 100, then it expanded even more. Now, that’s like, several 100 people, but it’s still called the 100. Coaches community. And his goal was, number one, he would teach, teach people, you know, teach other executive coaches who were younger, everything he knows, and he would just kind of create this community at no cost, with the only stipulation being that, you know, as Marsha likes to say, when you’re old, like me, that you’ll you’ll do something similar and pay it forward. And I thought that was really lovely, and a great way to think, How can we, how can we be thoughtful about bringing others together in a generous way?

Damon Pistulka  13:39

Right, and creating a legacy like that, right? And creating a lot of legacy like that. That’s, that’s brilliant, because there is that point, when you get in your career when you just go, I really want to just give give the world what I can.

Curt Anderson  13:52

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, you know, and be able to do it at any age, you know, you know, younger, you know, still kind of building out your career. But, you know, and he shared a quote, In your book, it was it’s very hard to to, it’s very hard when things are going well to challenge yourself. You know, it’s very in he talked about, that’s when people give up, that’s when people quit is when things are going extremely well. And it’s how do you step up? So with the long game, you give a couple of great examples about people with you know, those big, audacious dreams and goals. You share a story of a gentleman His name is Louis, I’m gonna butcher his last name, but let’s quiz.

Dorie Clark  14:29

Luis Velasquez, you’re a fellow member of the recognized expert community.

Curt Anderson  14:34

You got my back on that one I love and I just man, I’m getting chills when I read that when I think about the story that you talked about. This gentleman was had brain surgery came out he was with his wife and was right there in the Chicago Marathon. And just and he was like, You know what, I’m going to run this. And the guy just said, if I if I have the story correctly, can you share a little bit of like what that story was with an inspiration there?

Dorie Clark  14:57

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the elements of course of playing the long game, as we all know, is about, you know, how do you how do you set these kind of audacious long term goals for yourself and, you know, find it within you to achieve them. And it you know, it’s hard enough if you have a business goal. I mean, we know that’s not easy. But I wanted to take some examples from other realms of life, which I think can be a source of, of inspiration for this. And it really, in a lot of ways doesn’t get much tougher than, you know, having having brain surgery. He, you know, literally, this was not even a benign situation, he had brain cancer. And he this sort of interesting kind of full circle thing. He had just been diagnosed when he and his wife were on a trip to Chicago, and sort of accidentally, they stumbled into the Chicago Marathon. And he’s looking all around. And, you know, there’s all these happy people and happy families, and then, you know, you see people, you know, who have bibs in there, you know, I’m running for this person, I’m running for this cause, and it just struck me, he’s like, you know, what, you know, when I’m through all this, that’s what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna run this marathon. And so he has, you know, his brain surgery. And that’s what he’s, you know, he says, he sells his doctor, like, Alright, I’m gonna run the marathon, I’m going to train for that. And the doctors like, um, maybe you better scale that back. And, you know, he’s like, you know, Luis, like not to get you down, but you’re gonna be lucky if you can walk straight again, like, just don’t be, you know, depressing yourself. Because you’re not, you know, Marathon ready. But Luis actually use that as the the forcing function for him. He was not going to accept it. And he in terms of like, physical therapy. I mean, we all know that physical therapy is not easy when you’ve been injured. But Louise deliberately pushed himself he reframed it in his mind, instead of calling it physical therapy. He called it his marathon training. And, you know, they tell him to do the exercise 10 times you do the exercise 100 times, because he said he was not going to allow this to curtail him. And today, he’s not just a marathon runner. He’s an Iron Man. He runs 100 mile races, which, I mean, I’m not doing that. But he’s an incredibly impressive guy. He’s an executive coach, he teaches at Stanford. He’s really an inspiration.

Curt Anderson  17:13

Apps. Guys, if you’re just joining us again, you’ll drop us a note. Let us know that you’re out there. Please follow Dory here on LinkedIn. Do yourself a favor. Yeah. Have to buy the book, the long game entrepreneurial you let’s see that fly, those colors are Dory. So again, you know, that’s that’s just one story in that book. And again, Luis if I’m not mistaken in that book and getting I’m getting chills, like just think about he completed that marathon one year later. Yes. Finished it from brain surgery. So when you’re challenged with it, you know, boy, everyday we’re facing challenges, struggles and you know, wanting to give up, man, you read a book, like from Dory, the long game and it just such an inspiration. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Let’s dive right into another inspirational story from the long game. Dory, our dear friend, Marie and Contreras. She was a guest of ours. David, it was right on your birthday weekend, if you remember, three months ago, I guess. And Marie is just such an amazing woman. I know. She’s a dear friend of yours story. She tells a great story about maybe something with Carnegie Hall. I don’t know. Can you just share like, again, having those big, audacious dreams and goals? Can you share that story with Marie that went on there?

Dorie Clark  18:22

Absolutely. Yes. So So Marie is certainly a great example of playing the long game. She is, you know, when I first met Marie, she was one of the very first people that I met when I moved to New York City. And at the time that I met her, you know, I had literally never met anyone who, who did this before. She was a professional, full time jazz musician. She was a big bandleader. She was a composer, she did jazz, she did opera. And I mean, you know, super, super impressive, but, as one might suspect, not the most lucrative fields in the world, being a full time jazz musician. And so she was having to take all of these, like, kind of terrible part time jobs, you know, to support herself. And anyway, Marie ended up I encouraged her to start, you know, leveraging some of the other talents that she had developed in the course of being a professional jazz musician, you have to be incredibly entrepreneurial, as a musician. And what’s interesting is a lot of musicians just kind of limit themselves. They think, well, you know, I’m a musician, that’s it. But I suggested to Marie, and she immediately jumped on it, that the skills that she had developed in sort of marketing and social media around her business could actually be very valuable to other people. And so she ended up becoming an entrepreneur, she now has a great agency, doing social media for people booking people on podcast booking people on TEDx talks. So she’s just grown that enormously, but right at right at the time, you know, sort of the cusp of her business really taking off. She had this idea of playing a concert at Carnegie Hall, which is You know, the sort of ultimate dream for standing? Yeah, that’s a big leagues, right. And she, she really hadn’t started making the kind of, you know, money that would give her security in this process. And so when she first heard about how much it would cost to rent, you know, it didn’t sound that bad. You know, she’s like, we know anything, I could probably raise that money. And you know, she’s planning it out. And then of course, it just keeps, like getting worse. You can imagine it’s like, oh, well, there’s the union and the old women. Oh, you want it recorded? Oh, you want what? Lights? Yeah, exactly. Oh, you wanted the air conditioning turned on? You didn’t know that. Yeah, it ends up being $40,000. To have this one night of music at Carnegie Hall. And she, this was, you know, literally more money than she’d made the entire previous year. She’s like, Oh, my God, this could bankrupt me. But she, she ended up pushing through and doing it. And I mean, the good news. Now she’s such a successful entrepreneur, you know, there would not be a large amount of money for her today. But at the time, it was at the time, it felt incredibly risky. But she made it happen. And, you know, part one of the things that I talk about in the recognized expert, you know, community, the recognized expert formula, is the importance of so called social proof, you know, how do you telegraph your credibility to others. And if you are a musician, one of the most incredible things you can telegraph is I have played at Carnegie Hall, that means something to people. And so her having done that, you know, having this sort of big goal that she was able to pull off, continues to have residual benefits. As you know, she continues in her musical work. And in fact, we, you know, now collaborate on musical theater together.

Curt Anderson  21:50

Yeah, that’s fantastic. And Damon, if you remember, Marie, you know, she did her TED talk is more Derby outfit. Yeah, we had a great conversation. Dora, you’ve done multiple, multiple TED Talks. I like to get into that. But what this is, I didn’t plan this. We didn’t plan this, but it’s like we did. I do want to share a quote from entrepreneurial you. And I feel this ties in perfectly as soon as describing read. You can be talented and well regarded. But unless you’re very deliberate about the choices you make, you may you may end up earning little for your efforts. Could you share let’s let’s let’s go into Dory. Let’s talk about you for a little bit. Okay, like folks know, like, hey, look, you know, I know Dorie Clark. I was just on a call two hours ago. And I’m like, Hey, do you know Dorie Clark? Yeah, she’s our guest. She’s like, you have Dorie Clark and your program? How did you pull that off? I’m like, Well, you know, I get it’s all about the hair. You know, just kidding. So, Dori, thank you for being here today. But talk a little bit. Let’s talk about your path, your journey and you started out you tell history for folks that aren’t aware of your background, hysterical story about you know, your just little nonprofit? I think in the bike world, if I’m not mistaken. It talked about like, what were your bigger, audacious dreams? How do you become that Wall Street best selling journalist? Or, you know, best selling author? How do you get on all these TED Talks? Read this dynamic community? Talk a little bit about your journey and your dreams?

Dorie Clark  23:08

Oh, my gosh, well, thank you very much. Yeah, I the job that I had most recently before starting my business back now in 2006 was for two years, I was the executive director of a bicycling advocacy nonprofit. So it’s, you know, it may sound like a very big leap. But you know, interestingly enough, I actually saw a lot of commonalities, I probably would not have the career I have today. If it were not for running that bike group. Because running this tiny, tiny little nonprofit, and we were staff of three, you have to be so incredibly entrepreneurial in your thinking just like so scrappy. So, you know, how can we get it done? You know, where can we beg, borrow and steal? You know, it really, you know, because your back is against the wall, it forces this kind of creativity and a willingness to do everything because you have to do everything. You know, it’s not like you can say, Oh, well, I’ll just let him do it. Because there’s no him there to do it. So you got to figure it out. So that was that was actually really excellent training for me. But yeah, broadly speaking, I mean, I started I started out with this business and I was just, you know, scrapping to get work from people that I knew connections that I had from previous jobs, you know, just like you kind of I mean, like like anybody right? You take you take what you can get, you take the gig for like 300 bucks, you know, I did, I did PR for this Irish guys folk music album. He gave me like $200 in a paper bag like literally that was like one of my early jobs bag

Curt Anderson  24:48

Yeah, so So I just want to continue on that so as your as you were kind of like building things up. You know, I believe your first book was stand out. Is that do I have

Dorie Clark  24:55

that correct? The The first one was reinventing you reinventing? Okay,

Curt Anderson  24:59

I have that AdWords so reinventing you. So just talk about how, you know if somebody’s out there like, Man, this is music to my ears, Dory, I, you know, I know you I’ve been following you. Maybe they have a similar type path that they’re looking to pursue, you know, how can somebody reinvent themselves? You know, playing the long game?

Dorie Clark  25:16

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, ultimately, when it comes to reinventing yourself into into any kind of career, if you want to change careers, or if you just want to read, you know, if you if you love manufacturing, and you’re like, you know what, I want to reinvent my brand in manufacturing, because people aren’t necessarily appreciating the full spectrum of what I bring to the table. So let’s, you know, how do we turn up the light on that, there’s a few things that we can do. I mean, the first one is to take on a stock of where we are now, and to really try to understand that and that, you know, is easier said than done, right? We all have a lot of blind spots around us. And so I actually have in reinventing you, I suggest this super quick kind of back of the envelope exercise that can be helpful, which is you can go to about, I usually like to say about a half dozen people, because that’s a reasonable enough cross sample. But you ask them, if you had to describe me in only three words, what would they be, and you know, make sure you write them down, so you don’t forget, et cetera. Now, this is obviously very quick, this is not a heavy lift to ask people to do this. And some people, you know, they say, Well, you know, they’re not going to tell me anything, I don’t already know, bla bla bla bla. And you know, this is true, if you are reasonably self aware, you’re probably not going to literally hear words that you’re like, Oh, my God, I never knew, right, you probably know it. But the reason that this is valuable, is that the thing that most of us have no idea about the thing that most of us, you know, we we literally would have no way of knowing this is what is it that other people think is most distinctive about us what is most memorable about us, that’s the thing that we don’t know what other people see as most singular. And by finding that out, it begins to give you clues about what’s your competitive advantage, what’s different about you. And that becomes a force that you can sort of use to drive, and you lead with that. And it helps kind of guide you into your future directions. The other quick tip that I’ll just share, if you’re looking to reinvent yourself, in some way, is really think of it almost as a kind of PR campaign, because you have to keep reminding people, it’s very easy for them to forget, you know, to kind of go back to their previous assumptions about you. And so, you know, you can do things like use social media, for instance, you know, if you if you want to be known as like the innovation guy, well make sure you’re keeping sharing articles about innovation and posting your takeaways and talking about things, in your conversations with people make sure that you know, periodically, you’re bringing things up, you know, Oh, what have you been doing lately? Oh, I just read this really great book about innovation. You know, I was particularly struck by a, b and c reminds people in subtle ways so that it sticks, right.

Curt Anderson  27:55

I absolutely love that guy. So I think we’re coming to the top of the hour. So if anybody’s just joining us for two o’clock Eastern time, right now, if you’re just starting out with us, we’re here with Dorie Clark, boy, follow her on LinkedIn, you need to I beg you invite you welcome you. You have to grab her books, long game entrepreneur, you she has a whole slew of books. You have a weekly, you’re on Newsweek weekly, you’ve had like Seth Godin, Marshall Goldsmith, you’ve had some dynamic guests that you have on your show, I want to pull in, we have some great folks here in the crowd. Again, drop a note here to Dory demon, pull up this question here from Alicia, I have here. So one of the lessons I resonate with the most enjoy his book, the long game is the importance of making whitespace in your calendar. Can you talk about that the importance of making whitespace? How about that one? Dory? Thank you, Alicia.

Dorie Clark  28:43

Yes, Alicia, thank you for for bringing that out. That’s exactly right. In the long game, I divide the book into three sections. And the entire first section is about this concept of how to create more whitespace. Because the truth is, all of us would would like to be strategic. You know, we think, you know, generally in our culture, we think this is a good idea. But the truth is, most of us don’t do it. Most of us just, you know, it’s like lip service. And the reason is that we never give ourselves slash allow ourselves slash proactively claim the space that we need, so that we have any bandwidth to be strategic. You it’s not that it takes huge amounts of time to be strategic, you know, I’m certainly not saying like, Oh, everyone needs to go, you know, often, you know, meditate for six months, but you need a little time, you need a little bit of mental peace in order to be asking the right questions. And most of us just frankly, never have that because we feel so drowned and so far behind. And I think that, that that’s, that’s really frustrating. It’s really problematic. And so, ultimately, we need to be really vigilant about guarding that space and getting getting better at that muscle because it is, it is only going to get harder for us As we get more successful, nobody tells you this, we have to kind of learn it on our own and enforce it. But as you get more successful, it’s a good problem to have in some ways, but you are going to have more people clamoring for you and more demands on your time. And if you keep the same criteria, as you had previously, you are going to very rapidly get yourself in trouble. Because you will not have time to pursue your independent agenda, you’re only going to have time for what other people are asking you to do. And so this is where we really need to flip the switch. And every year as we get more successful, we have to get tighter and tighter with our eligibility criteria of what is allowed to go on our calendars.

Damon Pistulka  30:41

This is so critical. And as you if you’re in an organization or your business gets larger, you need to take more and more of the whitespace time because your thoughts are what really drives your entire organization. If you don’t take that time to think and think of the new ways put up the the big goals and the ways you want to take the company, your company just stagnates and sits in that and really, it’s not stagnate, it’s beginning to die. Because it’s what stagnation is but yeah, that’s that’s incredible. So I’m not correct and I’m so I’m not crazy that I just block out times my calendar, they don’t even know what I’m gonna do.

Dorie Clark  31:23

That’s right, man. That’s what we we got to take a page from you, Damon

Curt Anderson  31:28

Asik. So at least it gives a little late trap. So Dory, that was absolute phenomenal. I’d like to I want to take I like to dig a little further there. So you do an amazing job again, guys, if you’re just starting out with us here. You know, Dory has multiple TED Talks. I like to hit those in a second here. You just thank you. We’re so blessed and fortunate to have you spoke at Temple University on went on Wednesday did an amazing job just dynamic. We had a record crowd at Temple University. Thanks for our dear friend Dorie, she always attracts a big party. You talk about the one on one, one to many, many to many. I think is this a good time? Could we segue right into that. So and even if you’re an individual, you know, an individual consultant, entrepreneur, solopreneur, like many folks here today, or even you’re like, hey, wait, I’m part of an organization. I’m part of a fortune 500 company. I’m a small manufacturer, this is totally irrelevant. Could you explain like this one to one, one to many and many to many, if you could?

Dorie Clark  32:25

Yeah, absolutely current, always a good time to talk about this. So this is a key part of my book, standout which I wrote a few years ago. And the basic idea, you know, the subtitle is how to find your breakthrough idea and build a following around it. We all know that, you know, we live in this very noisy, crowded world that it’s it’s not easy to get your message heard. And so the book was really exploring the question, how do we do it if we have something that we care about whether it’s, you know, a product, a service, an idea, you know, a cause? How do we get other people to hear it and care. And so broadly speaking, what I what I developed as a as a framework, as a way to think about this is, as you were alluding to, we all start with one to one communications, we then hopefully go to one to many, and then many to many, and what what this means in practice, you know, everybody sort of starts at one to one, if you have a new idea, you need to be testing it, right? You need to test it with customers, you need to talk to your friends about it, you need to be like, Hey, do you think this is a good idea? Like, am I crazy here, you know, or, Hey, customer, I have this thing I might be able to do for you? Would you like that? You know, you sort of test the market and see you refine it, you begin to get some product market fit. Okay, great seems to be going well, once you have that, hopefully, if you want it to scale. And you know, a lot of people don’t do this. But this is the part that needs to happen is there’s only so far you can get one to one, right? I mean, unless you know your your customer somehow is the best connected person in the world. They can’t tell enough people to fill your practice, it’s just not going to happen. So you need to be more exponential. And that’s where one to many comes in. And it’s about thinking through how can you magnify your reach? And that involves things like, Okay, could you give speeches about what you’re doing? Could you appear on podcasts? Could you do live streams like this? Could you? You know, whatever, you know, there’s there’s a million things, could you write an article, could you write a book, but it’s somehow making your ideas accessible publicly to people that don’t know you personally. And that’s how you can really grow the scope of what you want. And hopefully, you know, the thing that every bit is, is known or wants, wishes to have people come to you that you don’t even know that’s, you know, like victory there. But then there’s a third level and this is like the ultimate victory. Not a lot of people get here. But this is the holy grail that we’re seeking. And it’s what I call many to many, and that is where you you might not even be in the room. You might not even be involved in this. It’s not that you’re you know, having to write the article or whatever. It’s that your idea has gained so much traction and has enough of a following that other people indepen And gently are telling their friends, they’re having conversations, there’s communities perhaps that are formed around your idea and what you’re doing so that it becomes not necessarily about you, although certainly it does benefit you and your idea, because they’ve taken it on as something that they care about themselves.

Curt Anderson  35:19

Man, I absolutely love this. And so even like, for the manufacturer that’s out there, like, you know, hey, I’m a, you know, 3040 person and plastic injection molder or, you know, circuit board maker. And you know, what does it say, you know, we’re the best kept secret, what does this have to do with me? But exactly what you’re saying is, how can we get that internal champion, that internal cheerleader at that customer, this is not my example. But I absolutely love this, somebody who’s called it like the Trojan horse, like you need that Trojan horse to enter into that customer, and people spill out and they’re like, man, we have to do business with ABC, during what I’d love to do is and 2006 you decide to leave the nonprofit world? I know you did. Some you had some political aspirations and early career, you decided to plunge into entrepreneurship, as you plunge in, did you have any idea like, you know, like, that you would get here, like where you are today, you know, is like this one to one or one to many, many, many, like was it a long? You know, what was that process like for you? Because a lot of folks never get there. You know, you were able to get there where you our friend Gail is on the program, huge raving fan of yours. By the way. She always talks about being curious, were you curious? Were you hungry? Like what took it? What would you credit for you to get where you are now?

Dorie Clark  36:31

Well, well, thank you. It’s a kind question. I think, you know, ultimately, you know, we always, you know, it’s become sort of a cliche now, right, that, like, you know, children born today, you know, 60% of children born today will have jobs that haven’t even been invented, you know, I mean, I’m sure that’s true. But, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. I mean, it’s, you know, if you look at it one way, the things that I’m doing are things that I probably could have anticipated, like I was, I was interested in writing, I was interested in doing interviews, I was interested in, you know, consulting and offering advice in some capacity. Also, the form that a lot of these things take, I couldn’t have anticipated. I mean, you know, doing a weekly live stream show for Newsweek, I mean, it’s like, okay, video on the internet, like, wow, you know, like, 20 years ago, that was sketchy prospecting. It’s like the record that keeps skipping, you know, like, no, no, would not have anticipated that. But, you know, I think ultimately, like a lot of people, it really just starts with a question of putting one foot in front of the other. I mean, ultimately, what has become, I think, in some ways, my signature idea, you could say, is around this question, both for individuals and for companies of how, you know, how do you break through? How do you get your ideas your message heard in this very noisy world. And the reason that I’ve gained expertise in that is that I had to study it very, very closely and carefully, because if I did not solve it for myself, I would not have been able to have a business that was a going concern. So I needed, I needed to figure it out in order to crack the code, so that I could support myself. But I think, you know, the only difference maybe, is that I sort of once they figured it out, and it felt like, you know, wow, this was sort of needlessly opaque and confusing. I wanted to share the information with other people. Because, you know, I very much am I am a firm believer that we are not competing with other people. I mean, sometimes people have a little bit of a scarcity mindset that they, you know, they want to like pull the ladder up after them. They’re like, well, I don’t want other people to know that I had to work hard to get it, you know, why should I give it away or whatever. But I mean, the truth is, it’s just it’s not fair, that so many of the systems are set up so that, you know, outsiders, quote, unquote, don’t ever have access to that information, you know, that you would only ever get access to the information. If somehow you’re like born into it, or somehow you get to be friends with the person who whispers in your ear. I mean, you know, that’s how we get like, just Skull and Bones crap. And, you know, that’s, that’s not the society that I want to live in. If we really want to make things fair, people need equal access to information. Now, it’s true. There’s a lot of people that are lazy, and they won’t do anything with that information. But for the people that are willing to work hard. I really want there to be an even playing field. I think that’s the that’s the world that I want is that if you’re if you’re willing to work for it, that you should have the opportunity to do so. And so I’ve been really trying to disseminate that as best I can.

Damon Pistulka  39:42

Yeah, that’s awesome.

Curt Anderson  39:43

We’re an island story. Yeah, we’re just we’re just we’re I guess it’s like lunchtime ish. Wherever you are. Let’s just kind of let’s just savor that one for a minute. Or Dory. Dude, that was like, drop them like, I want to I want to talk about your TED talks for a second, but Anna has a great Question here, Damon, I don’t know if you can pop that one one up here real quick. I just I just caught

Damon Pistulka  40:04

oh yeah, this is this is this is this is something that I see people fighting with in business every day you get some success and then it’s just like,

Curt Anderson  40:12

how can the comfort of stagnation? Boy that’s a

Damon Pistulka  40:16

way that that desire for change. It just happens to some people and it’s sad to say but it’s valid to people

Curt Anderson  40:24

that ties in with a quote that we’ve mentioned from Marshall earlier. So Dori, what’s your, what’s your thoughts on that question?

Dorie Clark  40:29

Yes, well, it’s, it’s a great one. And you know, hi. Hi, Donna. Nice to see you there. She actually attended in person, my most recent TEDx talk in Boston. So I got to speaking of TEDx talks, awesome. Yeah. So, um, so yes, I like and it is very poetic, right, the comfort of stagnation. I think that it’s really important for people to be honest with themselves, you know, and if, if someone is legitimately happy with wherever they are, you know, whether you know, the where they are, is they’re working at McDonald’s, or they have a six figure business like crazy, you know, God bless, we should all be able to run our lives the way that we want, optimize for the things that we want. That’s wonderful. But a situation that I think is a very sad one is that, you know, again, regardless of where we are, whether we’re working at McDonald’s, or have having a six figure business, if you find yourself over time, repeatedly saying, Oh, well, you know, I wish I could do this, but bla bla bla bla bla, or I tried to do that, but bla bla bla bla bla, it’s like, you know, we don’t need any more ancient mariners in the world. You know, we don’t need people complaining, there’s an albatross around their neck and not doing anything to cut the albatross off their neck. And so it’s like, it’s like, put

Damon Pistulka  41:54

up or shut up, you’re gone. Yeah,

Dorie Clark  41:56

you gotta, I’ve got I’ve gone through periods like that for my life, too, you know, for a long time, like, you know, wanting to write a book thinking about writing a book. And then the truth was, I just got disgusted with myself, we all have to be honest enough to get disgusted with ourselves and be like, you know, what, do it or don’t do it?

Damon Pistulka  42:16

Yeah. That just keep going with that. Because that is your that. Yeah. And this guy, just another moment.

Curt Anderson  42:28

By the way, Damon Dory, I think was pre COVID. You were working on some improv? Are you not? Do I have that? Correct?

Dorie Clark  42:34

I yeah, I took a stand up classes, I did improv

Curt Anderson  42:41

classes. That’s what it was, I know, you’re alright. So stand up classes, a little penguin classes. So you, and you are really well rounded. Let’s talk about a few of your TED Talks. You know, it sounds like when somebody lands a TED talk, that is a monster you’ve done, how many now I’ve done for TEDx is, or TEDx is, if I have a couple of topics, the real reason you feel so busy and what to do about it, finding your breakthrough idea, future proof, your idea how to build a following around your ideas. And again, thank you for speaking at Temple this week, that was your topic, there was how to build a following around your ideas. Sure, a little bit about, you know, if somebody if anybody out there is like, you know, boy, TED talk, I would be honored. I would love to do a TED Talk. Marie talked about it on the program when she was on a couple months ago. Just could you share your experience on TED talk, what it’s done for you, you personally what it’s done for your business?

Dorie Clark  43:31

Yes, absolutely. So it is a great opportunity, I mean, to be able to do some kind of a TEDx talk, because I think there’s, there’s a couple of things. One is it is a real forcing function, you know, to be able to say, look, look, you’ve got X number of minutes, you know, like the max is 18, although we encourage it to be less. So let’s say you’ve got eight minutes, you’ve got 12 minutes, give us your best idea, and distill it in a way that’s useful to other people. This is really like an existential challenge, right? This is very difficult for a lot of people. And so I think that having, you know, having to be forced to think that way, like, Oh, my God, what is my best idea? How do I make it useful, is kind of a useful way to force ourselves to step up into being the kind of person that we want to be. So that’s really great. And then additionally, I would say, for anybody that’s interested in speaking, you know, professionally speaking, certainly speaking for money, but you know, also perhaps speaking as a vehicle for promoting your business. It’s a really great calling card, because, well, it is true that not every TEDx, you know, lives up to this. Theoretically, they all have to sign an agreement that the TEDx, the TEDx talks will all be recorded, and that they’re doing a multi camera shoot. The video is very important to this. And so usually what happens If you will get super high quality video of you talking. So if you’re looking for something, it’s a video calling card for for years into the future, you know, if you’re like, hey, I want to get more speaking gigs, you now have an excellent piece of collateral that you can send to people and say, Hey, if you want to know if I’m any good watch this. And it makes it a heck of a lot easier.

Curt Anderson  45:20

Right? That’s fantastic. I think you’re left if I had this correct. I think your last one was only like seven minutes, maybe seven or eight minutes. Yeah, just under eight. That’s right, like seven and change. And so that was fantastic. Love your topics there. So you’ve built up I wanted to share I had a quote here that I wanted. I want to let me get organized here. I want to come back to I want to come back to that big dream topic that we’re talking about earlier. Okay. So again, guys, if you’re just joining us here, we’re here with Dorie Clark, follow her on LinkedIn you need to buy where’s that book? Three. Where’s the long game? You gotta hit? Where? Where is it? Where is it? Right here. It’s there. It’s right there. Guys. You have to buy the long game. Yeah, have to buy entrepreneurial you. I wanted a question that I was dying to ask you. There it is entrepreneurial. You You’ve got standout, reinventing you. So just like Wall Street best selling journalists, or best selling author here. So guys, one question that we talked about earlier was the dreams. We talked about Luis brain surgery, brain cancer, fights through sets a big dream and runs a marathon. Okay, maybe yours is a TED talk, maybe yours is writing a book, maybe yours is, you know, whatever it might be parenting, whatever it is in life, you know, you’re with your significant other right? Set that big dream story. Do you see a common thread on folks, youth coach, you know, if you coach the elite, you coach with wonderful, high level hugely successful entrepreneurs. I know, multiple, you know, folks that are under your umbrella, what common thread you see with folks that break through and hit those big dreams, compared to the folks that have big dreams and just don’t quite get there. Do you see a common thread of the folks that break through compared to the folks that just don’t quite hit that dream?

Dorie Clark  47:00

Yeah, that’s a great question to ask Kurt. I mean, I’ll give two answers. The the super obvious one is, you know, there are there are some people that, you know, are just, you know, they, they don’t do the work. And that is that is very obvious. But nonetheless, it’s it is a big factor in people not succeeding. But among people who are willing to do the work. The I would say that actually, the biggest challenge, the biggest impediment that I see is that they sometimes have the attitude of, yeah, but I’ve already done that. And it becomes almost like a little bit of a mantra. Because if basically, that’s, you know, it’s sort of like the No at all disease. And if you are trying to get better, you you know, for those people, I’m sure they sort of experience it as like, wow, why is it that everybody around me is such an idiot? And they keep telling me things I already know, they keep telling me things I’ve already done. Yeah. But the problem, you know, if like you are their coach is it’s like, oh my god, like you did it once. Like I need you to do it like a frickin 100 times don’t you get it? And they’re like, well, but and so. I think honestly, a willingness to listen, and to actually place trust in the in, you know, the people that you have vetted to give you guidance is probably the most important thing. Because if you if you kind of hold back because you think you know better, you’re going to resist.

Curt Anderson  48:38

Yeah. All right. Another sec, that another moment of silence there, Dory, we’re just gonna we’re just gonna savor that one for a second. So I love that you talked about trusts, surrounding yourself with high level folks that can help help you hit those dreams. Do I want to be mindful of your time? I know what man I could talk to you all day. First off, thank you. Thank you, I cannot express what this has meant for everybody here. Another might be a less might be the last maybe.

Damon Pistulka  49:04

I’ve got one question I want to get into if we can hit it right now. Damon hit that question. Well, you’re talking the long game. And in what I see, you know, when you’re talking to an executive at Google, or Microsoft, and they have to play the short game being in a publicly traded, it’s so hard to be a high level executive and play the long game anymore, because everybody wants immediate results. How do you help them get through that? Because it’s, it’s like, the temptation to do the quick. Over the long the right long game. It’s so imminent.

Dorie Clark  49:39

You’re 100% right, Damon, I mean, this is a big problem. And the truth is, it is easier if you are an entrepreneur or if you’re working in a privately held company, for you to be able to do this because you don’t you don’t. You might have self imposed pressure. You might have pressure from a boss, but you don’t necessarily have pressure from the war. Rage cracking down on you. If you are an executive at a publicly traded company, there’s, there’s an enormous amount of pressure. This is why it’s a tiny minority now. But you know, there are some companies that refused to provide earnings guidance. There are some companies, like, you know, notably Jeff Bezos, when he was running Amazon, who I think really is the exemplar of long term thinking in modern corporate life, who, you know, literally every year, when he released his letter to shareholders, would reattach the first letter to shareholders when Amazon went public. And in that first letter, he’s like, don’t expect profits for a very, very, very, very, very, very long time, because we are going to be reinvesting them. And that is our strategy. And that is what we’re doing. Right? And you have to, you have to beat the drum, you have to control that narrative. If you are a mid level executive, you really have frankly, very little control, you can try to influence the people around you, you may just have to suck it up and deal with it, and try as best you can to play the long game in your own life. But wherever possible, I think we need to sort of fight the power against this because it’s incredibly deleterious. And we if we’re going to have big powerful profound long term results, we need to start planning now you can’t you can’t snap your fingers again,

Curt Anderson  51:34

dude, just got this is so good. Guys, do me a favor. If you missed any of this, please go back, hit rewind, you can cut you can like just fast forward over me and Damon just like that, but just listen to every word that Dorie just said this was just pure gold or you are such. Oh my goodness, I can’t express what you’ve meant to me, guys. You know, please check out Dorie Clark’s website. She is a coach. She has a recognized expert community if you you just got a sliver what Dori delivers on a monthly regular basis if this inspired you and I can’t imagine it didn’t just inspired you. You would love you join her organize her her group. Check out her website. Dory. My here’s hope this might be my I have like 10 more questions, but I’ll narrow it down. We talked we opened up with Who was your hero growing up, man. Dude, that was like such a great answer. James Bond was if you guys missed that super fast. Let’s talk about today. Who inspires you today move like you know, you’ve done an amazing job. You’ve had wonderful success boy. And when you and I’ve talked I if you remember one of the last questions I asked you, you and I had a coaching session. I’m like Dory, where do you see yourself? What’s your five year vision? Your five year plan? Man, you laid it out and was just so inspiring my question to you, who inspires you today? What keeps your foot on the pedal?

Dorie Clark  52:52

Ah, thank you, Kurt. I appreciate it. You know, I can tell you that. For whatever reason. Lately, I’ve been on a little you know, a little bit of a while I’m always on a reading binge. But lately I’ve been on a reading binge. I will call it classics of baby boomer thought. That’s, that’s how I would describe it. I think that, you know, this is is not the most flattering thing about me. But like when I was growing up, you know, as a as a XOR. Gen XOR. There was so much in the press about baby boomers like everything was about well baby boomers and baby boomers. And it was like, almost intolerable. Like, just like screw these people in their spiritual journeys. Like come on, just like get over it. Like I could, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t deal. But now that I am a grown up, I actually am sort of looking back. I’m like, Oh, actually, they did do some interesting things. And so I’m now I’m now trying to avail myself with this wisdom. So I have been reading most recently, respectively, a biography and an autobiography of Stuart Brand and ROM Das, so that that is what I’ve been spending my time with lately. Okay,

Curt Anderson  54:07

awesome. And I think on temple I caught your program in temple your mother, Gail, do I have that correctly? Yeah. We’ve she’s returned to cheat. Did you say she’s retired recently? Did I hear that correctly? And

Dorie Clark  54:17

you’re not not exactly recently? No, but but boy, she’s. She’s spending a lot of time learning Spanish. That’s.

Curt Anderson  54:26

So I did. So I know. I know. You love talking about your mom. And so I just want to give a little shout out to Gail today. So yeah, so she catches us. Hey, we’re sending our love out to gals.

Dorie Clark  54:36

Thank you, Curt,

Curt Anderson  54:37

any last words? Any last words of with you. This was just fire this. The chatbox is just absolutely phenomenal. Everybody’s sending their thanks and love to you. Any last thoughts that you want to share with anybody where they can connect with you anything that you want to share?

Dorie Clark  54:52

Well, thank you so much. It’s great to get to spend the afternoon with you fellas and all the wonderful folks tuning in our our lexers and our new new friend So, if folks want to learn more, I mean, as you mentioned, Kurt, they can, they can get the book, the long game, you know, it’s on Amazon and lots of other places. There’s also a long game strategic thinking self assessment, which people can get for free. It’s sort of a reflection tool that you can download, and just go to Dorie clark.com/long game.

Curt Anderson  55:18

That’s awesome. And I tell you, when you go to dories website, check out the testimonials. It just I would keep her another hour just rattling off all the wonderful testimonials that think that the way that you’ve changed lives, and just the footprint that you’re leaving behind. And again, one of the first things that we talked about in the program today is Utah about just giving that generosity, giving with value that authentic, authentic belief that you have of just helping people move the needle, and boy, you just eat, drink, breathe and sleep it and so we salute you, we thank you. So, Damon, let’s wrap up on that one man. So everybody round of applause man, just jump out of your chair. Give a round of applause for Dorie Clark in the house. Story. Thank you we send our love and blessings to you we appreciate you thank you for what you do for the business community for rector’s Damon take it away dude.

Damon Pistulka  56:11

All right, thanks, everyone, for being here. Thanks, everyone, for getting in the chat put in your comments and telling us where you’re from support and Dory getting out there. Thank you for being here today and want to thank Dorie Clark myself and just say, wow, wow, go back and rewind this thing. Listen to it a couple times. There’s some gold in there, go out and get her books, not only the long game, but the other books that she’s put out because that’s going to help you stand out, reinvent yourself and get you on the right path. So, for today, we’re finishing up the manufacturing ecommerce success series. We will be back again next Friday with another interesting topic. Thanks so much, everyone.

Curt Anderson  56:52

Thanks for hanging out with